Orinda City Council member and banBARTstrikes.com organizer Steve Glazer campaigns to ban transit strikes in California by riding to all 44 BART stops on Monday, October 14, 2013 in Monday Oct. 14, 2013 in Orinda, Calif.

Photo: Mike Kepka, The Chronicle

Orinda City Council member and banBARTstrikes.com organizer Steve...

Image 2 of 2

Steve Glazer, an Orinda councilman and Assembly candidate, seeks support last fall at the Orinda BART Station for his campaign to ban transit strikes .

Glazer, an Orinda councilman who is a political consultant and former aide to Gov. Jerry Brown, is taking an unusual path for a Democrat running for the Legislature. He's grappling with unions and running a near single-issue campaign of banning public transit strikes, like the two BART walkouts last year that made life miserable for voters in the East Bay's 16th District.

That's not all the 56-year-old is grappling with. He's joined by two other Democrats, Dublin Mayor Tim Sbranti and Danville Mayor Newell Arnerich, and Republican attorney Catharine Baker in the political equivalent of a no-holds-barred WWE cage match for the chance to replace termed-out Assemblywoman Joan Buchanan, D-Alamo.

Two of the candidates will emerge from the June 3 primary to meet again in November. Glazer is hoping that lingering anger over the BART strikes will give his campaign a boost in a suburban district where thousands of people depend on the train system to get to and from work each day.

"Steve Glazer puts riders first," reads one of his mailers. "That's why his opponents will stop at nothing to try and defeat him."

Glazer toured the BART system last year, gathering signatures on a petition to ban transit strikes, and was a regular outside the Oakland building where BART managers and union leaders engaged in often fruitless talks.

'Fight for commuters'

"I was shocked that not a single elected official in the Bay Area would stand up to the unions," said Glazer, who hasn't spoken much about how he would replace the transit agency's current bargaining system. "I have the independence and courage to fight for commuters against the power of the special interests."

Glazer has his own hooks to special interest money, however. A group financed by California real estate interests has spent nearly $1.1 million on Glazer's behalf, much of it for ads attacking Sbranti, a onetime official with the California Teachers Association, for his support of BART workers' right to strike.

As a political consultant, Glazer worked as an adviser to the California Chamber of Commerce's JobsPAC group, which gets its money from companies like Safeway, Disney, Anthem Blue Cross, Occidental Petroleum, Philip Morris and Pacific Gas and Electric Co. So far this year, the group has spent $52,000 to support Glazer's campaign and about $177,000 to oppose Sbranti.

Sbranti, a longtime coach and teacher, isn't happy with Glazer's attempt to dismiss him as the pro-labor candidate because of his support for the BART workers.

"Who started the 'this is the labor guy' stuff?" asked the 39-year-old Sbranti. "Look at my record and you'll see I've always been for economic development. ... I've always been pro-labor, but I'm also pro-business and pro-environment - and refuse to say you can't be all of them."

Sbranti, who says his focus as an assemblyman would be on education, has the endorsement of Buchanan, who is leaving the Assembly after the maximum six years in office. He also has the backing of a number of East Bay Democratic legislators and a wide range of party groups and labor unions.

That support has meant more than a signature on an endorsement card. Labor unions, led by the California Teachers Association, have put together an independent expenditure committee that has raised more than $1.5 million to back Sbranti. Much of the money has gone toward ads and mailers attacking Glazer as a tool of California's business interests.

Low-priced alternative

The megabucks throw-down between Glazer and Sbranti and their backers has left Arnerich shaking his head. The 61-year-old architect says he offers an alternative.

"I'm running a grassroots effort and staying away from the state employee and special interest money," he said. "That's not who I want to represent."

His campaign finance report shows that. So far this year, Arnerich has collected about $21,000 in outside contributions and loaned his campaign $68,000.

Arnerich says he got into the race because his years as a city official and businessman have left him frustrated with Sacramento and the Legislature.

"Every day the state takes and steals money from local government," he said. "The state is sucking the life out of business."

He is not convinced that BART is the all-consuming issue for voters in the district, which runs from Orinda east to Walnut Creek and then down to the Livermore Valley.

"California has a lot of issues," Arnerich said. "I haven't found anyone who wakes up every morning wondering if workers at that particular transit agency should have the right to strike."

Republicans' hope

Baker, the only Republican in the race, may be best served by standing back and watching the three city officials fight. While Democrats have 39 percent of the registration, Republicans and independents make up more than half the district's voters, and a three-way split of the Democratic electorate could give Baker a clear path to the November ballot.

Baker, a Dublin resident who works mainly as an attorney for small family enterprises, wants to loosen state regulation of business.

The state's work rules "make it really hard for employers to make good jobs that are flexible for employees," she said.

Educational priorities

Baker agrees that BART workers shouldn't be allowed to strike and "hold the community hostage." She also favors merit pay for teachers, an easier way to fire educators and a system under which parents could formally evaluate the job their children's teachers are doing.

"This is not just another rung on the political ladder for me," the 43-year-old Baker said. "I saw a problem, wanted to solve it, and that pointed me toward Sacramento."